- The film only cost $800,000 to make yet has earned more than
$40 million. Hitchcock used the crew from his TV series to save
time and money.

- In 1962 exchanged the rights to the film and his TV-series
for a huge block of MCA's stock (he became their third largest
stockholder).

- An early script had the following dialogue: Marion: ``I'm
going to spend the weekend in bed.'' Texas oilman: ``Bed? Only
playground that beats Las Vegas.''

- Hitchcock bought the rights to the novel anonymously from
Bloch for just $9,000. He then bought up as many copies of the
novel as he could to keep the ending a secret.

- During filming, this movie was referred to as ``Production
9401'' or ``Wimpy''.

- Hitchcock originally intended to open the film with a
four-mile dolly shot from a helicopter, a scene similar to Orson
Welles' bravura opening of Touch of Evil (1958).

- The early motel scene between Norman and Marion (Leigh)
resembles in many ways another scene from that movie featuring
Leigh.

- The painting that Norman removes in order to watch Marion
undressing is a classical painting depicting a rape.

- For a shot right at the water stream, the crew had to block
off the inner holes on the shower head so that the water sprayed
past the camera lens.

- The shower scene has over 90 splices in it, and did not
involve Anthony Perkins at all. Perkins was in New York preparing
for a play.

- During the shooting of the shower scene, Hitchcock arranged
for the water to suddenly go ice-cold when the attack started.

- Hitchcock originally envisioned the shower sequence as
completely silent, but Bernard Herrmann went ahead and scored it
anyway and Hitch immediately changed his mind.

- The blood in the shower scene is actually chocolate sauce.

- The close-up of Marion's dead body and the pullback scene is
a still frame. Hitchcock's wife saw the original version and told
her husband ``You can see her breathing'', so he changed it.

- Hitchcock tested the ``fear factor'' of mother's corpse by
placing it in Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she
screamed when she discovered it.

- The last shot of Norman Bates' face has a still frame of a
human skull inserted in it : is that of "Mother"

- There is a rumor that the this film was not passed for
release because it was claimed that Janet Leigh's nipple was
visible during the shower scene. Hitchcock didn't edit it out,
but merely sent it back, (correctly, it seems) assuming that they
either wouldn't bother to watch it, or miss it the second time.

- Hitchcock insisted that audiences should only be allowed to
see the film from the start. This was unheard of back then as
people were used to just coming in at any point during a movie.
The reason for this was that the film was advertised as starring
Janet Leigh, but her character is killed in the first half of the
film.

- After the film's release Hitchcock received an angry letter
from the father of a girl who refused to have a bath after seeing
Diabolique (1954) and now refused to shower after seeing Psycho.
Hitchcock sent a note back simply saying ``Send her to the dry
cleaners''.

- The shot of Marion flushing the toilet is believed to be the
first such shot in American cinema history.

- Marion hides in the bathroom to count the required number of
bills.

- Goofs : Shadow of camera crew on the bed when Marion
prepares to leave town with the money.

True or false??

(thanks to BubbCoop@aol.com)

-The Bates mansion is straight out of the painting
``House by the
Railroad'' (1925) by the American artist Edward Hopper.

- "Contrary to the assertion by some that the Psycho
house...was based on a haunted house built in the early
1800's in Kent, Ohio, the designsof Hurley and Clatworth
were original."-Stephen Rebello (Alfred Hitchcock
and the
making of Psycho)

- Hitchcock paid the title sequence designer Saul
Bass(also credited as ``Pictorial Consultant'') $2,000 to
render storyboards for the famous shower scene but,
according to Leigh and Assistant Director 'Hilton Green'
(QV) ,
directed it himself.

- "Saul Bass was there for the shooting, but he
never directed me. Absolutely not. Saul Bass is
brilliant, but he couldn't have done the drawings had Mr.
Hitchcock not discussed with him what he wanted to
get."-Janet Leigh

- The sound that the knife makes penetrating the flesh is
actually the sound of a knife stabbing a watermelon.

- 'He told the prop man to go out and get a watermelon
which we'd stab. Knowing Hitchcock, the prop man knew he
had to come back not only with watermelons of all sizes,
but casabas, cantaloupes, and honeydews'...In a recording
studio prop man Bone quditioned the melons for Hitchcock,
who sat listening with his eyes closed. When the
demonstration table was littered with shredded fruit,
Hitchcock opened his eyes, and intoned simply:
'Casaba.'"-Stephen Rebello (author)